I'm not showing that to my daughter... She'll immediately want the family to adopt one!

We have a neighbor who has a Chinchilla... She wants one of those too!

_________________"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

_________________"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

I like bats too. We had a bat house. It fell down and we've yet to put it back up.

I'm also fond of raptors. We have a couple of Red Tailed Hawks that live in the vicinity. It keeps the pigeon population in check. We have a neighbor who feeds the birds. Sadly they use the cheap stuff and we have an overabundance of pigeons. Every now and then we see a hawk take out a pigeon.

I like pigeons. I used to raise them when I was a kid. I just don't feel the need for 200 or so pigeons pooping on my house daily. Since we don't let our cats out the pigeons do seem to get out of hand.

_________________"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

Da, it iz I .....J. (Hawk) Dracula.....Ze sun is coming up soon, pleez make haste. Vat kann I tu vor you Dori ? Ah, ze pictures are Schwarz ! But of course, zey ver taken at nite ! VRrruaaahhhahahaha !!

Maybe I kann zend zem to you ?

You're not a Donauschwab, are you? I know a couple Romanian ones...

They love to talk like Vlad Teppis too...

_________________"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

Dori
About Jay's pictures. The reason you're not getting the full picture is because you're looking for a cat. The picture is actually of a hedgehog. He has a pet hedgehog. That is why it is so odd. Oh that Jayhawk and all his strange children. It must be the blood. He drinks only from those who engage in toad licking.

No, the Hedgehog has a pet family. He/she(?) is wild, only comes around after 23:00 and eats any dry cat food we have out for Gypsy or her friends, and he/she topples the small waistebasket most nights. One of Gypsy's "freinds" is "One-Eye", a Cat with one eye. We don't have a Hedgehog every year so this one is kinda special. It's all but lost its shyness and I've held it once. Poor thing wandered into the garage as the door was open. I closed the garage door shortly thereafter not knowing Holly (my wife chose the name) was in there. About an hour later while sitting out in the breezeway adjacent to the garage I heard scratching and almost inaudible wining...opened the garage door and there was Holly looking up at me. The poor hedgehogs decorate the streets here this time of year. I've stopped for more than one but most people don't. When autumn comes to the closing phase, young hedgehogs with too little weight are in danger of not surviving the winter. This is why why continue to feed Holly even if we know it's not quite the right thing to do. Wild animals were meant to be wild. Our cat Gypsy is somewhere between wild and domesticated. She comes and goes as she pleases although she has been staying fairly close to the house since she was hit by a car. That was last summer. We almost lost her and she hasn't been the same since.

The Bats were only with us for two weeks, mid June. That's the time of year when the expecting female Bats part from the flock to take shelter for the sole purpose of bearing and rearing their young. Most Bats only give birth to one single Baby Bat a year. That's why there's a problem keeping the population stable. To get those pictures, I stayed up until 4 a.m. and shot a total of 100 pictures, all with flash. It's easier to get photos of lightning than of Bats.

Difficult to count when they come out one by one but I would say we have somewhere between ten and twenty guests. All female of course. How do I know ? They're not waging war !! No, seriously, female bats set up temporary quarters each spring. A sort of "Kindergarten".

With any luck, I may have new photos this weekend. I'm not sure if I'm willing to disturb them......